County 10 Mascot Challenge: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Is the County 10 Mascot Challenge and Who Runs It?

County 10 is a digital news service headquartered in Riverton, and its own banner describes the operation as connecting the Fremont County community since 2011. The outlet covers daily life across Fremont County in central Wyoming, and the Mascot Challenge is its community competition built directly on that beat: readers weigh in on a field of local mascots, and the favorites advance as rounds progress.

The vote runs on Second Street, the contest platform whose app subdomain carries every County 10 promotion, and the mascot ballot sits at county10.secondstreetapp.com/Mascot-Challenge-2. In shape it is a best-of style audience poll: the entire exercise turns on public support for a favorite mascot while each round remains open.

Because the ballot is assembled and promoted by the outlet itself, the challenge functions as audience engagement for County 10's newsroom rather than as a standalone national campaign. That matters for anyone following Wyoming's poll scene: the program's round announcements, its rule notes and its stage-by-stage updates all surface through the same Riverton newsroom that covers Fremont County the rest of the year.

Which Editions Have Run and When Does the Ballot Go Live?

Two editions of the challenge are pinned down by the platform listings: 2024 and 2026. The organizer promotes the program as a returning yearly feature, and a headline on the outlet's own site announced the 2025 edition's return on February 25, so the series has run through the middle years as well.

The platform's dated trail for the program reaches further back than the latest cycle: its listed entries for the Mascot Challenge open on January 12, 2024, fixing the ballot's recorded history at that winter rather than at the 2026 staging alone. County 10 also files the challenge's stage announcements under a dedicated coverage category on county10.com, where items such as the 2025 season's February return sit alongside the newsroom's ordinary output. A second ballot path on the same subdomain, labelled Mascot-Challenge-Ballot-TEST, sits beside the live address too.

For 2026, the promotion window on the ballot ran March 10 through March 12 and the listing now shows closed. The season unfolds in compressed bursts rather than a long open floor, and County 10 publishes each new stage on its own news feed as it arrives. Nothing announces a 2027 start yet, so the outlet's coverage is the place a new window will surface.

One thing the published material never spells out is the written list of matchups or category slots behind each round; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How Does Voting Work on the Mascot Challenge Ballot?

Voting is deliberately simple. A supporter opens the ballot page on County 10's Second Street subdomain while a round is live, reads the mascot matchup in front of them, selects the favored side and submits. Everything the outlet has published about the challenge treats the ballot as open access: pick a side, submit, done.

The clearest statement of the participation rule came during the 2026 Final Four, when County 10 told readers voting is unlimited and would stay open through the weekend. That is looser than the hourly ceilings many publisher polls impose, and it means a committed fan base can carry a mascot on volume alone.

Late stages matter more than early ones under that setup. A matchup that survives to the Final Four inherits days of open voting rather than a short weekday sprint, so late-round totals can dwarf the opening counts. Supporters who want their mascot to go the distance should plan for sustained turnout across the whole season instead of a lone push, and the ballot resets with each new pairing as County 10 announces it.

Between rounds the picture goes quiet. Each new pairing surfaces through the Riverton newsroom's feed rather than through a standing calendar printed on the ballot, and nothing the outlet has published documents what the Second Street page shows once a stage closes. That leaves County 10's own coverage as the visible signal that voting has reopened, so a follower tracking one mascot's run watches the newsroom's output through the weeks a season lasts rather than refreshing the ballot blind.

How Does the Mascot Challenge Compare With Other Wyoming Polls?

Wyoming's poll market is crowded, and the Mascot Challenge holds a narrow lane inside it. The state's best-of ballots, among them Best of Wyoming, Best of Jackson Hole, Cap City's Best in Cheyenne, the Casper Star-Tribune's Best of Wyoming, CommunityVotes Cheyenne and County 17's Best in Gillette, all survey broad slices of local business and dining. Every one of those neighbours runs in the best-of vertical, and they split the state's markets between them: Cap City's Best and CommunityVotes Cheyenne both operate in the capital, the Casper Star-Tribune's ballot carries a statewide name, County 17's Best serves Gillette, and Best of Jackson Hole completes the set. County 10's mascot bracket narrows the same public-vote idea to a single themed field voted on by the outlet's own readership.

The outlet's wider slate on the same platform shows how unusual that format is. County 10 maintains the #Snapped Photo Gallery, an open photo board running since October 2024, seasonal galleries such as the Back to School Gallery and Snap into Summer!, a garage-sales board, ticket giveaways tied to the Wind River Rodeo Roundup in July 2026, and cash sweepstakes with $5,000 and $15,000 pools staged across the year.

Against that backdrop the Mascot Challenge is the only ballot-style competition among County 10's promotions, which is why it tends to rally school communities in a way a photo board cannot.

How Can Supporters Build Momentum for a Mascot?

Unlimited voting changes what a smart push looks like. Under a tight cap a campaign lives or dies on reminders; here, the organizer's own rule lets each supporter return as often as they like inside a round window, so depth of organization beats novelty. Alumni pages, student sections and local businesses tied to a mascot can all funnel people to the ballot while a matchup is live. In practice the work sits in rallying numbers during the short windows County 10 opens, not in pacing a few clicks across days, because the unlimited rule strips out any reason to ration participation while a round runs.

Two cautions. Rounds close quickly, so a push that lands after the cutoff helps nobody; sync your shareables to the moment a new stage opens. And County 10 has not posted a policy on organized or paid voting support next to the ballot, so read the live terms before leaning on outside help. The general playbook is covered in this guide to getting more votes online.